Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
A Family Wellness Check: California Invests in Treating Parents and Children Together
The state will be the first to offer comprehensive counseling services to parents during pediatric visits as part of Medicaid. (Samantha Young, )
Delta Dominates California Covid Cases: As the CDC reports that the more transmissible delta variant, or B.1.617.2, is now estimated to be responsible for half of new U.S. infections, California data is trending in the same direction. The quick and dramatic increases alarm public health officials, who are monitoring new cases closely. This San Francisco Chronicle map compares California's stats to other states. Read more from The Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times and NPR.
State Poised To Pay Victims Of Forced Sterilization: Direct victims of California's eugenics law that allowed forced or coerced sterilizations will be eligible for reparation payments of up to $25,000. Over 20,000 people were sterilized before the law's repeal in 1979. The state will also pay female prisoners who between 2005 and 2013 were sterilized with no counseling. The money is poised to be approved in the state's new operating budget. Read more on the reparations from the AP. And go back to Reveal's investigation of prisoner sterilizations.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
More News From Across The State
The Washington Post:
Vaccine Push To Go Door-To-Door In Effort To Defeat Delta Variant
President Biden on Tuesday announced a summer-long effort to reach Americans still resistant to getting vaccinated, including going door-to-door and visiting places of worship, as he fights what growing evidence suggests is ever more entrenched resistance from vaccine holdouts. In remarks from the White House, the president pointed to increased concerns over the delta variant of the coronavirus, which is more transmissible and has forced some European countries back into lockdowns, as he reiterated his exhortation that Americans get a vaccine. (Wootson Jr. and Pager, 7/6)
ABC10:
COVID: Youth Vaccinations Still Trail Adults By Wide Margin In CA
It appears younger people are not so excited about their chance to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Although the vaccines only became available for youth ages 12-17 in Mid-May, the latest state statistics show only about one in three kids ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated. That compares to about two out of every three older adults ages 65 and up who are fully vaccinated. (Rivera, 7/6)
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Why We Don’t Know If Sonoma County Officers, Firefighters Are Vaccinated
Police officers and firefighters were among the first Sonoma County residents to become eligible for coronavirus vaccinations. It was a nod to the essential nature of emergency services, and the intimate contact with a wide cross-section of the public required by the job. But months into the vaccination campaign, with doses readily available for just about anyone who wants them and new coronavirus variants threatening the unvaccinated, it’s unclear how many of Sonoma County’s first responders have elected to roll up their sleeves for shots. Public health experts see the lack of transparency as a problem, while many police and fire officials insist vaccination is an individual choice, and no one else’s business. (Barber, 7/6)
Travel + Leisure:
This California Zoo Is Vaccinating Its Animals Against COVID-19
California's Oakland Zoo has vaccinated some of its larger animals against COVID-19, using a new experimental vaccine specifically formulated for animals. The first animals at the zoo to receive their vaccinations were two tigers named Ginger and Molly. The tigers were chosen because large cats are particularly susceptible to contracting the virus. (Rizzo, 7/6)
Los Angeles Times/Daily Pilot:
O.C. Health Officials Boast 70% Vaccination Among Adults
Orange County has hit what both public health officials and experts describe as a significant milestone: 70% of residents 18 and older had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of last week. The county has been working to get to some level of so-called herd immunity by the beginning of July. That’s gaining more urgency as the new, highly infectious Delta variant is spreading. Delta is now the dominant variant in California, and is blamed for a rise in new cases in L.A. County. (Cardine, 7/6)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Golden Valley High School Hosts COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic For Community
Golden Valley High School will host a free mobile clinic for the COVID-19 vaccine this Saturday. Community members 12 years old and older are welcome to receive a free Pfizer vaccine in the Golden Valley High School gymnasium. Adventist Health is providing the vaccinations from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. (7/6)
The Sacramento Bee:
CA Capitol Reinstates Mask Mandate Amid COVID-19 Outbreak
The California Capitol has reinstated its mask mandate for all legislators and staff regardless of vaccination status after an outbreak of nine new COVID-19 cases was reported among employees last week. Effective immediately, masks will have to be worn in the Capitol, Legislative Office Building and district offices, Secretary of the Senate Erika Contreras and Assembly Chief Administrative Officer Debra Gravert wrote in Tuesday memos. (Wiley, 7/6)
U.S. News & World Report:
Meet 3 Black Women Fighting For Long COVID Recognition
Ashanti Daniels never contracted long COVID, but her experience with another illness pulled her into long COVID advocacy. In 2016, the registered nurse was just days shy of her 35th birthday when she got an unrelated respiratory infection. She ended up hospitalized for a week as she recovered. Except, she didn't fully recover. The Beverly Hills, California, nurse was accustomed to feeling tired after working night shifts, but the fatigue she experienced in the weeks after her infection was far different. Being tired, she says, is a light summer breeze. Fatigue is a tornado. (Cirruzzo, 7/7)
Los Angeles Times:
Can COVID-19 Cause Lasting Erectile Dysfunction?
Can COVID-19 cause lasting erectile dysfunction? This is now the topic of some discussion among doctors and health experts as they try to better understand the effects of the coronavirus. The problem has been observed in some patients, but experts agree more study is needed to form any conclusions. (Lin II, 7/6)
KQED/Inside Climate News:
Heat-Related Deaths Could One Day Match Those Of Infectious Diseases
As climate change drives up global temperatures, deaths linked to extreme heat are increasing, with some scientists projecting that by 2100, the number of heat deaths will match those from all infectious diseases. Life-threatening extreme heat linked with global warming has broiled parts of every continent over the last few decades, killing at least 166,000 people from 1998 to 2017, according to the World Health Organization. A 2020 heat wave study found that, since the 1950s, periods of extreme heat have become more frequent, longer-lasting and hotter, matching, and even exceeding climate projections made 20 years ago. (Berwyn, Bruggers, and Gross, 7/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Excessive Heat Ahead In New Southern California Heat Wave
After a broiling Fourth of July holiday weekend, temperatures are expected to keep climbing across Southern California. The heat is expected to build throughout the week, with highs soaring into the triple digits in some parts this weekend. (Schnalzer, 7/6)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Bay Area Heat Wave: Here's When And Where It'll Be Hottest This Week
The Bay Area’s inland cities will bear the brunt of a heat wave that’s expected to descend on the region on Thursday, according to National Weather Service forecasts. According to the latest forecasts, Saturday is likely to be the hottest day of the week, with temperatures reaching triple-digits in parts of the East Bay. (Shaikh Rashad, 7/6)
AP:
California Delays Considering Supervised Sites For Drug Use
California lawmakers will wait until next year to continue considering a bill that would give opioid users a place to inject drugs in supervised settings, the bill’s author said Tuesday. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, said he was told the Assembly Health Committee will delay a hearing on his bill until January. (7/6)
The Hill:
Top GOP Health Policy Adviser To Run For California Controller
A veteran health policy expert who has advised several presidential campaigns and the Bush administration will run to become California’s next controller in the midst of a massive epidemic of fraud that has hit the state’s employment division. Lanhee Chen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, told the Los Angeles Times he would try to become the first Republican to win a statewide office in California in a decade and a half. (Wilson, 7/6)
Victorville Daily Press:
Barstow Community Hospital Adds New CEO After Corporate Owner Went Bankrupt During Pandemic
Barstow Community Hospital has a new CEO. He brings a past of cutting costs after the hospital's corporate owner went bankrupt in 2020. (McGee, 7/6)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Sees Alarming Spike In Killings, Shootings: ‘Too Many Guns In Too Many Hands’
A bloody Fourth of July weekend that left a dozen people dead across Los Angeles accelerated an already troubling increase in homicides and shootings in 2021, with some of the city’s poorest communities suffering the heaviest toll. Homicides are up 25% so far this year across Los Angeles, although the brunt of the increase has been felt in South Los Angeles, where killings have jumped 50% over the same time last year. (Winton and Vega, 7/7)
The Sacramento Bee:
California Has $5.2 Billion In COVID Aid To Help You Pay Rent, Utility Debts. How To Apply
Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to extend the state’s eviction moratorium through September and boost funding for a rent relief program set up to keep tenants and landlords out of debt. The moratorium, which has been lengthened several times, was scheduled to sunset on June 30. But tenants groups fought for an extension amid concerns that the deadline would bring a wave of evictions before billions in aid had been administered. (Wiley, 7/7)
CalMatters:
Mothers May Not Return To Work Until School Starts
Now, as California opens back up, people are rejoining the workforce. But for mothers like Gutierrez, economic recovery may not kick in until school returns in August. By May, employment among working women without children had almost returned to pre-pandemic levels, while mothers with school-aged children lagged more than 6% behind, according to an independent analysis by Misty L. Heggeness, a principal economist at the U.S. Census Bureau. There’s a similar imbalance between men and women. Gema Zamarro, senior economist at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, found that by November women living with a partner were twice as likely to be unemployed as men living with a partner. (Bedayn, 7/7)
San Francisco Chronicle:
After A Year In Their Own Beds, Where Will San Francisco's Most Vulnerable Homeless Women Go?
The point, in a region increasingly numb to tent cities, was to avoid at least some of the violence that plagues up to 92% of homeless women, according to one estimate by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. But everything changed last spring when the pandemic hit. Dozens of homeless transgender women, abuse survivors and seniors who used to sleep in the boxy, steel-legged chairs were moved to emergency hotels and a women’s-only shelter — a 15-month retreat to clean sheets, safety and stability that many say made their lives better. Now, checkout day is looming. Pandemic aid programs are set to begin expiring at the end of September. After that, advocates worry that San Francisco’s most vulnerable women will once again be left behind amid an unprecedented flood of funding for homeless services. (Hepler, 7/6)
The Bakersfield Californian:
ElleVet Project Treats Vulnerable Pets — And People, Too
Mike Rodgers' eyes misted up after he was able to get veterinary care Tuesday morning for his 11-month-old pup, Xena. "If I don't have someone to take care of, someone who needs me, what good am I?" said the 56-year-old U.S. Army veteran. Xena is family, he said. She needs him. And it seems he needs her, too. Fortunately for Rodgers and Xena, the ElleVet Project mobile veterinary relief team's 32-foot-long RV rolled into The Mission at Kern County early Tuesday as part of a months-long tour of California and Nevada. The nonprofit — a charitable branch of ElleVet Sciences — provides free veterinary care, supplies and food to pets of the homeless and pets in other vulnerable communities. (Mayer, 7/6)